


Commonality

by wordsrising



Series: the Shifting Bones [3]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Interspecies Friendship, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:54:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29049501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsrising/pseuds/wordsrising
Summary: Species is not so great a barrier to friendship as some make it out to be.
Series: the Shifting Bones [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034121





	Commonality

Humming was a habit Victory had picked up from Kellan. They often spent their free time together, being the only two Fae serving on the Council, and some of their mannerisms were bound to rub off on each other. Kellan always carried spare parchment and an inkpot, and Victory hummed.

It was rather a tuneless sound but not entirely unpleasant, drifting through the still late afternoon air inside Victory's tent as he worked his hasty notations into more legible longhand to be sent back to the flock. Victory enjoyed the faint white noise provided by his own throat as he worked, in fact, and the tent's sole other occupant didn't seem to much mind it, either.

Pith, his storm-blue feathers puffed slightly in relaxation, had laid himself out on the tent's canvas floor hours ago and barely twitched since, only the expanding and contracting of his ribcage indicating he had not, in fact, died.

Victory finished his current page and set it aside to dry, flexing his claws to stave off cramps from holding a quill so long. He turned on his stool, looking down at his Raptorik bodyguard with wings splayed out, beak slightly agape; his crest and frills relaxed upward in contentment.

"What're you lookin' at, dragon?" Pith asked without opening his eyes, and Victory's crest folded back, frills tilting with silent laughter.

"I am admiring our new feathered rug," he replied, the dullness of his own monotone contrasting sharply with Pith's pretended disgruntlement.

Pith opened his eyes, tilting his head to get a better look at Victory. He was more adept even than most dragons at reading Fae emotions, and his beak gaped wider in a grin, shifting his wings to mimic Victory's frills.

"Think a hide rug'd look better," he said at length. Victory's frills swept down in an attempt at deadpan, somewhat ruined by how his crest continued to laugh. "How's the scribing going?"

"My claws are in need of rest," Victory reported. "Are you hungry."

"I could eat," Pith admitted, sitting up and fluffing out all his feathers before settling them smooth. "Wanna see if the cook’s finally learned to fry a shellbug properly?"

"Yes," Victory said, crest immediately perking up in excitement at the idea. The clan's head cook was not an insectivore, and thus struggled somewhat with the dishes Victory and his escort preferred, but she was learning.

Pith stood and grabbed his spear. He didn’t need it inside the bounds of the clan’s camp, but he and Nana and Sage all carried their weapons at all times, not wanting to develop bad habits just because they were safe for the moment.

Pith exited the tent first, holding the canvas open for Victory to exit after him. The camp was quiet at this time of day, with the hunters and gatherers off hunting and gathering, the fighters off training, and the camp too far from the temple for any noise to reach them here. There was no emergency to cause commotion around the healing tent, and Emil was out to sea and therefore not making a ruckus in the bazaar. In fact, the only noise of any significance was the faint ring of metal-on-metal from Thunder’s forge and the soft murmur of talk from the few dragons gathered around Voiken’s tables; occasionally broken by the hearty caw of Medi’s laughter.

Pith and Victory made the short journey to the cookfires in comfortable silence, simply enjoying the peace that they knew would not survive arriving at their destination.

Sure enough, the cookfires were roaring, pots bubbling and pans sizzling, all underscored by the sharp background melody of Samantha’s continuous cursing. The brilliant Fire-orange Mirror, bare of her day-to-day finery and ornaments, glanced up at their approach and hissed.

“Good to see you, too,” Pith said. “We’re fine, how are you?”

“Overworked and underappreciated,” Samantha snapped. “And fresh out of shellbugs, so don’t ask.”

“What aren’t you out of?” Pith asked curiously, while Victory settled to the ground and folded his wings, angling his right crest and frill downward quizzically. Samantha wasn’t as fluent as Pith, but her mate was a Fae, so she caught the gesture and understood it.

“Darkwood titan dumplings in bittercrisp wine sauce,” she replied, waving a foreclaw absently in the direction of the food tables. “Red dish with gold trim. Kindle says they’re good but he’s biased.”

“But so sweet about it!” Pith protested, grinning, while Victory found the appropriate dish and served a bowl for each of them, left frill lifting in amusement.

“I can see you laughing, nerd,” Samantha commented, so he lifted his frill further, crest coming up behind it, and stuck his tongue out at her. “Nevermind, drop the bowl, you don’t get to eat today.”

Pith laughed, grabbing his own bowl in his free claw, and took to the sky. Victory followed, clutching his own prize, while Samantha called threats she’d never follow through on after them.

Victory and Pith landed a good distance away, behind a large outcropping of rock, lunch secured and the cook properly riled. Pith grinned, and Victory relaxed his crest and frills right back at him before they dug in.

“Hm,” Pith said. “This is pretty good. Possibly her best try yet.”

Victory dipped his head in agreement. “It is. She has done well.”

“Of course now we have to go back and tell her so.”

“Hm,” Victory said. “Not it.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a brave and eloquent diplomat?”

“Are you not supposed to be my bodyguard.”

Pith’s feathers flattened with displeasure, and he swiped Victory’s bowl, stealing the last dumpling in it. “Fine. Back to your note-writing, diplomat: I’ve got a cook to brave.”

Victory watched him march off as if to battle, then took to the air once more to return to his tent. If he didn’t have at least a few new pages of notes by the time Pith returned, he would never hear the end of it.

Perhaps it was odd that, in the middle of a dragon clan, Victory’s best friend would be a talonok, but it seemed the most natural thing in the world to Victory. Who else would be his best friend, if not the talonok that drew on the back of his crests while he was asleep and ‘accidentally’ switched his clothing with Kellan’s on a bi-monthly basis? Was his goal here not, after all, to demonstrate how little actually separated dragons from beastclans, and how well they could get along if they tried? Pith was a best friend and a real-time demonstration all in one, and the scholar in Victory appreciated that.

He was getting him back for stealing his last dumpling, though. A best friend was a best friend, but food was sacred.


End file.
